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Articles from Sheryl Paul | Selfgrowth.com
- “The Wisdom of Anxiety” is Coming Down the Birth Canal - by Submitted on May 17, 2019 from Sheryl PaulIn April 2015, I had a dream while on vacation in Los Angeles: Robert Johnson, the Jungian analyst who has informed so much of my work, came to me and said, “It’s time to write another book and it’s mostly written.” I woke up, faithfully wrote it down as I do with most of my dreams, then filed ...
Views: 26 - Intrusive Thought: “I Have to be Single In Order to Heal” - by Submitted on May 17, 2019 from Sheryl PaulIt’s a thought that arises frequently for those struggling with relationship anxiety: “I have to be single in order to heal.” Offshoots and extrapolations of this thought sound like: • “I have to backpack by myself across Europe.” • “I have to live in a loft in New York.” • “I haven’t ...
Views: 27 - This is What it Takes to Heal from Shame and Anxiety - by Submitted on May 17, 2019 from Sheryl PaulWhen I was in graduate school twenty-five years ago, we learned many essential principles and tools for becoming a skilled healer in the counseling arts. We thoroughly covered various modalities, including the depth psychological perspective that informs all of my work, and spent countless hours ...
Views: 31 - A Lifeline of Hope in the Swamp of Relationship Anxiety - by Submitted on May 17, 2019 from Sheryl PaulA coaching client recently wrote to me to share the following (shared with permission): Each time of the three times I spoke to you, you told me something that has been a huge lifeline for me: “If two people are willing to make it work, they can make it work.” You mentioned this to me three ...
Views: 27 - Self-Trust, Red Flags and Relationship Anxiety - by Submitted on Apr 11, 2019 from Sheryl PaulJust as there are no rules for life, there are no rules for relationships. That statement can be triggering for the ego, the part of us that insatiably demands definite answers and craves formulas. “Tell me how to live and how to love and then I’ll know that I’ll be okay!” the ego thinks, then ...
Views: 112 - A Remedy When You Don’t Know Who You Are - by Submitted on Apr 11, 2019 from Sheryl PaulOur culture entrains us not to know who we are. From the time we’re born and continuing into our early years, we’re conditioned to externalize our sense of self through being told when and how to eat, sleep, play, socialize, learn. Although this may be changing, the dominant child-raising ...
Views: 469 - Would You Like To Know Why Real Love Is So Scary - by Submitted on Mar 02, 2019 from Sheryl Paul“We are all made up of yearning and light, searching for a way out, afraid we will be shut in or cut off or repelled back into the ground from which we are reaching. This is enough to begin: To know, before all the names and histories drape who we are, that we want to be held and left alone, ...
Views: 152 - How Marie Kondo can Help You Fall in Love With Your Partner - by Submitted on Feb 07, 2019 from Sheryl PaulAnxious people aren’t typically the most easy-going people on the planet. Because our high sensitivity wires us for hypervigilance, which then causes us to scan the horizon for danger, we’re physiologically primed to have a more tightly-wound nervous system. Unless you received guidance as a ...
Views: 158 - How One Lightbulb Moment Can Ease Your Anxiety - by Submitted on Feb 07, 2019 from Sheryl PaulIn every session with clients, I drop down into the core of myself, breathing and opening into the vessel of being so that I can listen with the ears we do not see, the ones that hear underneath the top layers stories into the invisible layers where the gem that needs to be revealed rises gently ...
Views: 122 - One of the Anxious Statements I Hear Every Week - by Submitted on Feb 07, 2019 from Sheryl PaulOne of the blessings of listening to the inner worlds of my global audience is that I hear about the thoughts, feelings, questions, and stories that are archetypal to all human beings. I’ve written extensively about the various intrusive thoughts that enter my virtual office, but there are other ...
Views: 209 - The Two Most Important Qualities You Need in a Partner - by Submitted on Jan 24, 2019 from Sheryl PaulAs evidenced by our high divorce rate and, even more disheartening, how few long-term marriages are thriving and fulfilling, it’s clear that our culture has it all wrong when it comes to love. Not only do we project our gold and gods onto our partners instead of taking responsibility for our own ...
Views: 189 - One of the Most Powerful Questions to Cut Through Anxiety (Relationships, Health, Parenting, Friendship) - by Submitted on Jan 24, 2019 from Sheryl PaulWhen addressing anxiety effectively, we must attend to all four realms of self: physical, emotional, cognitive, and soul – or body, heart, mind, and soul. Attending only to one of the four realms is helpful, but it won’t help you heal anxiety from the root. By “attend” I mean we need tools to ...
Views: 202 - A Roadmap for How to Reclaim Your Magnificent Body - by Submitted on Jan 07, 2019 from Sheryl PaulSacred Sexuality isn’t only about sexuality; it’s about our relationship to our bodies, our creativity and our aliveness. When we learn to rinse away shame layers so that we can inhabit and appreciate the bodies we’re in (instead of the one we’re conditioned to believe we’re supposed to be in ), ...
Views: 158 - The Intersection of Sex and Relationship Anxiety - by Submitted on Jan 07, 2019 from Sheryl PaulIf you’re familiar with relationship anxiety, you know that it doesn’t take much for a flyaway thought to send you into a tailspin of anxiety that then leads you to question if you’re with the right person. This thought could be, “I’m not feeling in love” or “My partner always irritates me” or ...
Views: 236 - A Brave Explosion of the Myth of Desire - by Submitted on Jan 07, 2019 from Sheryl PaulAs always when I run my Sacred Sexuality course, I was blown away by the vulnerability and honesty on the forum on this last round. Where else do we share our deepest, darkest thoughts and feelings around sexuality, the ones we think we’re the only ones having, the ones that cause shame to ...
Views: 134 - There's Something Broken But It's Not You - by Submitted on Jan 07, 2019 from Sheryl PaulI spend a lot of time thinking about our culture, and it’s a topic I bring up almost every week in my blog and courses in some form. Lately, I’ve been thinking about how terribly sad and actually tragic it is that culture should support its members into becoming more of who they are, but we, in ...
Views: 165 - Explode the #1 Block to Healing from Anxiety (Relationship and Otherwise) - by Submitted on Dec 13, 2018 from Sheryl PaulA few weeks ago, as I was cleaning out our closet, I stumbled upon a stack of papers from my grandmother. Most of the papers were familiar, but one unfamiliar packet literally dropped onto my lap, a stapled report for an adult-education class in psychology that she took in 1963 that I had never ...
Views: 223 - How to Shatter the Myths that Are Keeping You Stuck - by Submitted on Dec 13, 2018 from Sheryl PaulA great deal of my work centers around shattering myths about love, romance, and intimacy that cause untold amounts of anxiety in relationships and sexuality. If we start with the very basic “doubt means don’t” slogan that permeates the culture of romantic love, we see immediately what happens ...
Views: 348 - Am I the Only One Struggling with Anxiety? - by Submitted on Nov 29, 2018 from Sheryl PaulPeople often ask me why they’re struggling with relationship anxiety or social anxiety or any other kind of anxiety when other people seem to glide through life more effortlessly. The subtext embedded in the question is, “Is there something wrong with me?” or “Why am I being singled out or ...
Views: 268 - The Poetry of Loss - by Submitted on Nov 11, 2018 from Sheryl PaulMy son and I are driving into town for our weekly Friday morning special time and Suzanne Vega’s song “The World Before Columbus” comes on. It’s a song she wrote for her daughter that I used to sing to Everest when he was a baby, and these lyrics made me cry every time: Those men who lust for ...
Views: 213 - The Fear of Getting Old - by Submitted on Nov 11, 2018 from Sheryl PaulWe live in an ageist culture. It’s not only that we’re terrified of death and hurry to sequester the topic away under the nearest rock or stuff it into the closest corner; it’s that, in a culture that reveres youth, beauty, and physical perfection, we fear aging itself. We fear the lines that ...
Views: 248 - The Best Piece of Advice I Can Give You to Reduce Your Anxiety - by Submitted on Nov 07, 2018 from Sheryl PaulOur era has been called the Information Age, the Technology Age, and the Digital Age. But it could also easily be called The Age of Anxiety, for anxiety is rampant and can manifest in so many ways: social anxiety, test anxiety, work anxiety, relationship anxiety, sleep anxiety, fertility anxiety ...
Views: 347 - “My Partner Isn’t Smart Enough” - by Submitted on Oct 31, 2018 from Sheryl Paul“One of the big traps we have in the West is our intelligence, because we want to know what we know. Freedom allows you to be wise, but you cannot know wisdom. You must be wisdom… The intellect is a beautiful servant, but a terrible master. Intellect is the power tool of our separateness. The ...
Views: 262 - The Art of Patient Loving - by Submitted on Oct 31, 2018 from Sheryl PaulPerhaps the area of our lives to suffer most from the increasingly fast pace of the culture is love, for the expectation of immediate results naturally leads to a belief that love should not only be easy, but that when there’s a problem, it should be remediated quickly. Love doesn’t work this ...
Views: 255 - The Truth About Love (and my thoughts on Instagram) - by Submitted on Oct 31, 2018 from Sheryl Paul“Love is one of the great enlargers of the person because it requires us to ‘take in’ the stranger and to understand him, and to exercise restraint and tolerance as well as imagination to make the relationship work.” – May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude I recently decided to join Instagram. ...
Views: 266 - You Can't Stop the Waves but You Can Learn to Surf - by Submitted on Oct 31, 2018 from Sheryl PaulAt the core of anxiety – whether health anxiety, death anxiety, relationship anxiety, or generalized anxiety – is the need for safety. As I’ve been writing about in my last few posts, left to our own unguided minds, the ego will latch onto our stories to try to gain a foothold into the ...
Views: 333 - The Scars of First Heartbreak - by Submitted on Oct 31, 2018 from Sheryl PaulThere’s nothing like the first. The first family. The first friend. The first kiss. The first job. The first baby. The first heartbreak. The first time or experience or relationship lays the groove of a blueprint for how we navigate later, similar experiences. Our first experience of a family ...
Views: 209 - What is the Work of Breaking Free from Relationship Anxiety? - by Submitted on Oct 31, 2018 from Sheryl PaulA coaching client recently said to me, “You talk a lot about doing “the work”, and I wondered for so long what “the work” was. I thought that if I understood anxiety intellectually I would feel better. And the first time I went through the course I did feel better for a while, which I know is ...
Views: 243 - The Day My Son Flew Into The Sky - by Submitted on Oct 31, 2018 from Sheryl PaulHe had been waiting for this since he was two years old. For as far back as we can remember, Everest has wanted to fly. Many young kids, especially boys, have a penchant for things that go – trucks, cars, trains, boats – but for Everest it was more than a stage; it was a calling. He wasn’t ...
Views: 247 - Heartbroken Not Broken - by Submitted on Oct 31, 2018 from Sheryl PaulShame is often a placeholder for powerlessness and a protector against grief. Instead of feeling the rawness of grief, the mind latches onto a shame story that says, “I’m broken.” Instead of surrendering to the powerlessness of painful situations that had nothing to do with you, like your ...
Views: 189 - Flags Versus Red Flags - by Submitted on Oct 17, 2018 from Sheryl PaulOne of the most common questions I’m asked during a coaching session is, “What are red flags? You say that if I’m suffering from relationship anxiety and I’m in a healthy and secure relationship without red flags then the anxiety is a manifestation of pain that needs attention as opposed to ...
Views: 221 - The Gift of Projection - by Submitted on Oct 17, 2018 from Sheryl PaulProjection is one of the most important concepts to understand when you’re stuck in relationship anxiety or any manifestation of anxiety. It’s a psychological term that essentially means we’re stuck in a story about someone or something else with the belief that it’s true, and that if the person ...
Views: 236 - What You Choose Determines What Comes Next - by Submitted on Oct 17, 2018 from Sheryl PaulTransitions, as breaking and renewal points, offer choice-points that determine how we unfold into the next stage of our lives. Many people find me during their wedding transition when when they’re broken open not only by relationship anxiety but also by the earthquake of feelings that erupt ...
Views: 311 - Loneliness and Love - by Submitted on Oct 17, 2018 from Sheryl PaulThere’s a fundamental loneliness that is part of the fabric of being human. It arrives in the corners of night, when shadows form from curtain folds and the backs of chairs. It seeps in just before twilight, when afternoon exhales its last breath and evening hasn’t yet inhaled. It lives on the ...
Views: 266 - At the Heart of Anxiety - by Submitted on Oct 17, 2018 from Sheryl Paul“The final stage of healing is using what happens to you to help other people. That is healing in itself.” – Gloria Steinem “Why me?” people often ask when they’re dragged into the underworld of anxiety in any form. “Why do they have it so easy? Why does it look like everyone else glides ...
Views: 297 - The Art of Making Decisions - by Submitted on Oct 04, 2018 from Sheryl PaulOur culture fails to teach us the essential skills we need to navigate through life successfully in so many ways. As I discuss often on this site, it fails to teach us about healthy, real love. It fails to teach us about how to feel our feelings and work with our thoughts. It fails to guide us ...
Views: 261 - Caring What Other People Think - by Submitted on Oct 04, 2018 from Sheryl PaulHow would your life be different if you didn’t care what other people thought? How might your relationship, your job, and your day-to-day functioning be different if you weren’t weighed down by others’ opinions? How might you peel and crack out of the shells of your insecurity and arrive more ...
Views: 285 - The Scariest Thing We Do - by Submitted on Oct 04, 2018 from Sheryl PaulEvery day that I work with clients struggling with relationship anxiety I find myself saying some version of, “Of course you’re scared. Loving is the scariest thing we do.” As I’ve written about several times on this blog, fear doesn’t always present as fear but instead shows up as irritation, ...
Views: 336 - The Cracks are How the Light Comes In - by Submitted on Oct 04, 2018 from Sheryl PaulWhen discussing the concept that a root cause of relationship anxiety is the fear of being hurt by love, course members and coaching clients will often say, “I had a good childhood with loving parents. Why would I be so scared of love?” I’ve written other posts about how essential it is to peel ...
Views: 232 - Shrink Fear Grow Love - by Submitted on Oct 04, 2018 from Sheryl PaulWhen the fear-fog clears, when the projection that has kept him separate from you and sealed a barnacle over your heart finally shatters, you see your partner as if for the first time. Not only do you see her clearly, in all of her sweet and simple splendor, but the delusions of separateness ...
Views: 235 - I Love You Go Away - by Submitted on Oct 04, 2018 from Sheryl PaulAmong the many misconceptions that people have about love – that it’s only a feeling, that the feeling of being “in love” should exist from day one, that attraction is static and based on external attributes – the faulty belief that often gets swept under the rug more than any other is that ...
Views: 2292 - “I Married the Wrong Person” - by Submitted on Oct 04, 2018 from Sheryl PaulWhenever a theme arises in my weekly work with clients I know it’s important to write about it here. Last week the theme was: “I married the wrong person” or “It would have been easier with someone else.” One of the most important tasks for those on the road to awakening is to notice all of ...
Views: 273 - Social Anxiety and the Cocktail Party - by Submitted on Oct 04, 2018 from Sheryl PaulWhile flipping through one of my favorite bedside stand-bys, Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion, I came across the following passage and chuckled out loud: “My experience is that I can feel that I’m in the Grail Castle when I’m living with people I love, doing what ...
Views: 224 - Does Relationship Anxiety Ever End - by Submitted on Oct 04, 2018 from Sheryl PaulAmong the many questions that dart through the mind plagued by relationship anxiety, the one that can cause either hope or despair is, “Will this anxiety ever end? The short answer is yes: the acute anxiety that you’re experiencing – the one that wakes you in the night and causes you to lose ...
Views: 345 - Falling in Love with Other People - by Submitted on Oct 04, 2018 from Sheryl PaulLet’s blow the cover off of another taboo topic in our culture, one that causes my clients to barely be able to whisper their experience loud enough to share it with me: “falling in love” with people other than your partner, including bosses, celebrities, religious figures, and even your ...
Views: 225 - Invisible Lines of Hope - by Submitted on Oct 04, 2018 from Sheryl PaulOut beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about. Rumi When we’re being asked to unpack a new layer of wound that will lead to healing, it can feel daunting, overwhelming, and ...
Views: 206 - Unpacking Intrusive Thoughts - by Submitted on Sep 19, 2018 from Sheryl PaulOver the years, I’ve worked with many clients who have suffered from the intrusive thought, “What if my partner is gay?” (or “What if my partner is straight?” for those in a same-sex relationship), and while I’ve written several posts on the “What if I’m gay?” spike I haven’t written about what ...
Views: 248 - Pregnancy Anxiety - by Submitted on Sep 19, 2018 from Sheryl PaulAs I’ve written about before on this blog, one of the privileges of being the position of guiding people through the darkest aspects of their psyche and soul is that they share thoughts and feelings with me that they wouldn’t share with anyone else. Part of the reason why they share openly about ...
Views: 242 - Something is Wrong - by Submitted on Sep 19, 2018 from Sheryl PaulFear-mind has a special genius for trying to prove that it’s right. It’s like we all have this aspect of our personality – some call it ego, other call it lower self – that has secretly attended law school and graduated at the top of its class. This character, terrified of change, will gather ...
Views: 250 - Live the Questions - by Submitted on Sep 19, 2018 from Sheryl PaulI recently came across the following in a book called “The Middle Passage” by James Hollis: “What the frightened individual wishes above all is the restoration of the sense of self which once worked. What the therapist knows is that the symptoms are helpful clues to the place of injury or ...
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